I'm having crazy slow downs.

I have been working on my computer for the last three days trying to figure out what was slowing it down. I did everything, and I mean every diagnostic thing I could think of. I scanned everything, system files, bios, drivers, malware and corruption issues, and then processes. I was unable to find any significant reason that my PC was acting slow. I then ended all processes that were not essential for my PC to run, still no change. I ran in safety mode, and it ran flawlessly. I eventually caved in to a full system reset, which I really didn't want to do. I reinstalled everything one by one, finishing with Webroot. It slowed down my PC immediately. I was surprised to say the least, because my computer had been fine with it before. What changed?

Ok, so this is what the slow down acts like. Normally my computer can run a lot of stuff at once, opening a bunch of things at the same time too with ease. Then after some updates for Windows 10 (at least I think so) this happened. I saw sudden slow downs, in really strange ways. The programs themselves run fine, but then web browsers would eat up all power. I first noticed it happening when I couldn't scroll down on a big page, so I opened task manager. Then boom, a huge slow down, task manager would pop up as a blank screen, slowed my computer down, and lagged out my mouse. After 10 seconds it got back to speed, but because the task manager was blank during the slow down it was not too obvious at first to what was going on. After looking online it seemed to be a CPU problem, but the process percentages in all categories were going crazy while I was running web browsers (I also checked my CPU temps, they were fine). When I opened bigger programs, it would happen too. For instance, I was watching a tutorial on Youtube through my FireFox browser, with just two tabs open (I was scared it would fry my CPU to do more, this was before the temp test). Without thinking, I opened my video editor to try out what I learned, and it happened again. It acted just like the task manager did, only it sat there for about a minute, with a super lagged out mouse.

Based upon how it's acting, what do you think the problem is? Personally speaking I know it could be some sort of problem between both Windows 10 and Webroot, but the way I see it, Windows 10 is running fine on its own and I think a fix for Webroot sounds easier, and better in the long run. I know there's the idea of just turning back windows 10 to an older version, but I'm kind of done with messing with that idea (Also, I can't anymore, I have no older memory of old updates). Three days of messing with Windows 10 and other programs to find out that Webroot is the perpetrator is pretty frustrating, especially if being up to date on all programs and systems is supposed to be the safest.

Anyways just in case you need them, here are my specs. My pc was made by CyberPowerPC (I already worked with them). It has an Intel core i7-7700K, 16 gigs of RAM, the system is a 64-bit, it also has a Nvidia GTX 1060 6GB, and has a dedicated sound card Asus Xonar DX. Oh, and I'm running on Windows 10 Home version. I've owned this computer for about a year, so age shouldn't be a problem.

So, I did not install Webroot on this new system yet. First question is, is it safe to install? I don't want to have to do a system reset again. Second, if it is not the setup of Webroot that is the cause, what is Webroot doing that is causing my slow downs? How would I stop it?

Thanks in advance for any help, I'll be waiting for an answer.
Tycho

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Best answer by tychobrahe 5 April 2018, 20:48

Ok, so I was contacted by Webroot by phone yesterday from the Australian Support. It seems the the programs saved files were corrupted in some way, and Webroot itself was being installed wrong. Every time I would download and install it, it would just use the old files on my pc and install the same way. This corruption caused the system to see all my other programs as unknown files and it monitored all of them. So the guy from Tech Support basically had to remove any past files, reset registries, and then reinstall Webroot. Then he white listed all the programs that were then being monitored and were bogging my pc down. Took about an hour.

I was very happy with his help, and I'm happy I was able to get this fixed. Thanks for your guys help.
Tycho

So if you have many [u] files that could slow down your PC so it's best to Submit a Support Ticket and ask them to White-List your Unknown files and after a reply from support do a scan and check to see if the performance is back to normal.

Ok, how can we rule out that the instalation is not the problem? Even when I exit out of Webroot the problem still exists. When I say Exit, I mean I ended all processes of it. Even then the slow down still is there.

Since I'm trying to work with Webroot, and find a solution, yes I reinstalled. It is slow again. I did all that you said, there are no [u] files found, everything is [g].

I am now also working with tech support, and they had me run a diagnostic tool. The tool on average takes about 1-10 minutes (what they said). Took my computer about 30, with intense slow downs. I'm wating for a reply (we've been in contact for a few days. Two comments, one from me, one from him. Is it their days off or something?), but It's been almost a week since I started working on this, and the easier answer is starting to look a lot more appealing.

Well that's good work with support and please let us know what they come up with as I never get any slowdowns in the past 7+ years of using WSA and it's very rare that we see complaints of such issues. I can ping @ so he can look into the ticket for you when he comes into the office tomorrow.

Ah, so it is their day off, good to know. I will wait patiently for their reply now that I know their is no one around at this moment.

I mean, I feel the same way too. I have been using Webroot for quite a while, not as long as you, and I would rather see a solution through webroot, than to find something else. This is the first time I've seen problems like this, and though I switched from bitdefender to this some time ago, I've had it a lot easier here than I did with bitdefender.

@ wrote:
Ah, so it is their day off, good to know. I will wait patiently for their reply now that I know their is no one around at this moment.

I mean, I feel the same way too. I have been using Webroot for quite a while, not as long as you, and I would rather see a solution through webroot, than to find something else. This is the first time I've seen problems like this, and though I switched from bitdefender to this some time ago, I've had it a lot easier here than I did with bitdefender.The support ticket system is staffed 24/7/365 but the Community Staff is off on the weekends and the rest of us are Volunteers that try our best to help users. So Drew will check into your ticket if you used the same email address when joining the forum and he can get some info for you.

Yes, my account has the same Email, so I'll be ready, and I'll be enthusiastic (as the very monotone person that I am) to find the solution with them.

Yes, I know this community includes volunteers, and I thank you very much for your advice, I appreciate anything a volunteer does for me. The reason I also posted in the community is because I have had much more success working with large groups of people, than one on one so far. Besides, the more people that help out, the better (that's what I think anyways). It also seems to me that volunteers have had more open ideas to solutions, which I see to be a plus. Sure, going strait to a professional is great and all, but what if a volunteer finds a simple solution, and it's faster for everyone? In my instance it may be more serious, but you never know until you try. So I say, why not contact both?

That's right in most cases and a simple clean reinstall of WSA fixes most things! And in the cases we offer professional help as well but there is only so much we can do for users on our end and in that case we suggest to go to support for larger issues and when a user posts back the info they got from support then we all learn more and we can use the advice to help others! I was part of the Alpha/Beta group testing WSA very early in 2011 and in the 8 to 10 months the first version of Webroot SecureAnywhere 2012 was released in the fall of 2011 to the public, it's been a fantastic experience over the years since!

Hey @, I escalted this and talked with support. They told me that the issue appears to be due to some specific heuristic settings that were manually enabled. The ticket should have some more information on it on how you can fix it.

Thanks!

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@ wrote:
Hey @, I escalted this and talked with support. They told me that the issue appears to be due to some specific heuristic settings that were manually enabled. The ticket should have some more information on it on how you can fix it.

Hey, thank you very much for your addition to this post, it makes me feel better about this. I like that you guys are interested in helping me!

So, when you and customer support say that something was manualy changed, what does that mean? I'm being honest here, I did try turning off each security to see if one of them by themsevles were the cause. I did not however change any of the advance settings myself. None the less, I followed instructions, and though nothing looked like it changed by pressing "restore to default" I still did so for each category I was told to do so. Before and after I restarted my pc, no change.

Ah, I see now. I did not do that at all. It has always been at the middle option. Even then, I did set it to default using the restore to defaults button (though nothing changed from what I saw), and then restarted my PC. The change had no effect. The only things so far that have changed the speeds are uninstalling Webroot, or starting my pc in safety mode.

Perhaps when I installed Webroot it decided based on it's own stats to set a high level of Heuristics? I definately understand that this could be my fault. Still, I personally haven't changed any advanced settings since I started using Webroot.

It's best to keep talking to support as I'm at a lost why WSA would slow down your system unless you have lots of [u] Unknown Files in the scan log. Can you try a clean reinstall once again to see if that helps?

Please follow the steps closely!

Make sure you have a copy of your 20 Character Alphanumeric Keycode! Example: SA69-AAAA-A783-DE78-XXXX

Ok, I uninstalled Webroot, deleted my old download, and then restarted my computer. I then downloaded a new instalation .exe and reinstalled. After setup I went to andvance settings and made sure to click reset to defaults on each category I was originally told to. After another restart, it acted the same. I did another log, and there still aren't anything listed as [u], all are [g]

@ wrote:
Sorry, I forgot to say that I am set up on the online console (atleast correctly now anyways), and sadly nothing changed.Well keep in touch with support and hopefully they will find the issue as I'm at a lost!

That's fair, what's an average time for a reply from them? I don't mean to say that I'm impatient, waiting on them, in fact I want to make sure the opposite doesn't have to happen to them. I was sleeping when I received their last comment, and I felt kinda bad that I missed it. None the less, thank you very much for your help.

I do want to say one more thing though, before I begin working on a different task, I found out something that to me is pretty hilarious. I try very hard to fix my problems myself first. That doesn't always work out, and I have worked with a lot of different company's tech support due to that. Some of these problems I just end up forgetting about, throwing them into the pile of things I ignore. One of them was my old laptop. By no means is it super old, I bought it brand new in 2014. It is a y50 4k (I understand that the 4k laptop idea in 2014 now is silly, the processing wasn't actually strong enough for most 4k games and programs) and for a laptop it did what I needed it to do. It was great while I was in college. That being said, in 2015 I knocked it off a tall table and destroyed it. I took it in to see what was damaged, and they said it only needed a visual fixing, as in it was all cosmetic damage.

So what does this have to do about Webroot? Well, this is why it's funny to me. That laptop has had a problem for quite some time. It didn't connect to the Internet correctly in some way, not matching download speeds at all (It runs 10Mbps, my Internet is 80Mbps). That started at the end of 2016, and I tried to fix it on my own. I tried for about three days and gave up. It wasn't a big deal, I didn't do very heavy stuff on it, and my old desktop was working fine. I assumed that it had to do with me dropping the poor thing in 2015, so what could I do? Now it's 2018, I have a new desktop and I no longer use my laptop. I have this problem on this PC, and suddenly I remember the laptop's Internet problem. I turn it on, update it to the latest Windows 10. After that, I check its speed again, with wifi and Ethernet it's bellow 20Mbps. I uninstall Webroot, and restart the PC. When I check the speed, it goes to 75Mbps on wifi and 79Mbps on Ethernet. I did this while my desktop didn't have Webroot installed just to make sure it wasn't a problem with the using the key on more than one computer. That being said, it's no longer my main device, so it doesn't really need it anymore.

I'm just going to say now, after all this, and the laptop problem, it's becoming a little funny and I'm feeling a lot more pessimistic. I will wait for answers before I move on, but for now, I'm going to start looking for more options while I wait.

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